


not a haven but a home, and your arms to shelter within

by ninemoons42



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragon Age Fusion, Cassian is commander of the Inquisition's forces, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Female Friendship, Inspired By Tumblr, Inspired by Music, Introspection, Jyn is a human female rogue Inquisitor, Kissing, Kissing in the Rain, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Star Wars meets the Inquisition, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-08 20:45:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11089575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: Headed back to her home -- the mountain fortress of Skyhold -- after a series of sorties and far too many unwelcome revelations about the power that she reluctantly carries within her, Inquisitor Jyn Erso tries to steal a moment to find herself once again.Fortunately, she gets that moment -- and someone she loves finds her, too.





	not a haven but a home, and your arms to shelter within

**Author's Note:**

> I actually still have my Dragon Age Inquisition [side-blog](http://ninemoons42-inquisition.tumblr.com/), and I still have all my Inquisitor’s adventures posted to my AO3 [HERE](http://archiveofourown.org/series/318644), and I thought I’d finally take a shot at writing Jyn and Cassian into this other world that I had loved so much and that had gotten me so immersed in the game. I favored a female human rogue Inquisitor named Kiriya who chose to romance Cullen, hence the roles of our favorite rebel and spy here.
> 
> This fic comes mostly from the DA:I soundtrack, particularly [the main theme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHVe2dHsCT8), as well as [“Journey to Skyhold”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aza5MZ8HBc).

Peering up into the unsettled skies, up the slopes with the bitter charged scent of a storm on the move, up at the track that seemed to twist and turn with unnecessary ferocity even to the point of vanishing into the low-hanging mountain mists: and Jyn swallowed, hard, against the lump of unease in her throat. Turned to the others, still in various stages of fatigue and injury despite the long leisurely trek down well-guarded and well-trod roads. 

She dredged up a smile from somewhere beneath her weary heart, and wondered how genuine it looked, and said, “Go, go on, all of you. I will guard your backs.”

Silence among her companions for a long heartbeat, and then Shara half-fell off her horse. Stepped towards Jyn with the plates of her heavy armor clanging in faint protest. “You cannot possibly convince me that you feel unsafe -- here, at the foot of the Frostbacks, with Skyhold only half a day’s walk away, and our forces quartering these valleys and plains.”

Jyn let her smile fall off, grateful for the chance to be true to herself and to the others. “I’ve spent too much time shivering and hiding in the corners of places that were supposed to be home.”

Sympathy flared in Shara’s eyes, though her words seemed to belie the emotion. “Still. This is the place that you have claimed for your own. This mountain might as well be marked as belonging to you.”

“To us,” Jyn said.

“Yes. To us.”

She put her arms around herself, not for the cold. Shivered, and not because of the storm that was already blowing cold gales their way. 

“I -- I want to think,” she said. “I want to make sure I know what to say to the Grey Wardens.”

“To Leia,” Shara said, quietly. 

Jyn flashed her a brief smile, like quickly loosing one of her own long knives from its scabbard. “To Leia, and to Mothma. To our friends. I don’t wish to further burden their spirits with a hasty or thoughtless report of what we’ve been seeing. Of what we’ve been fighting.”

“That responsibility should not be yours alone,” Shara said, and Jyn was grateful for the woman’s hand on her arm: she knew the roughness of Shara’s hand, the multitude of scars and calluses, the odd shapeliness of her nails and the torn and battered leather gloves she wore in all conditions. “We, too, must shoulder our share of the task. We must support you, as you lead us.”

“Then do this for me: let me be the last to come up,” Jyn said. “Give me time to think. I am not hurt as you are, as the others are -- I still have a little strength to spare, and I am more than used to carrying my heavy thoughts. No one will think it amiss if you head to the healers first thing on your arrival.”

“You must swear to speak to me -- to us,” Shara said, “as soon as you have arrived at your conclusions.”

“I could hardly keep anything like this only to myself,” and Jyn allowed herself a small laugh. “You would come to my very chamber and kick down the door to become privy to my thoughts.” She clasped Shara’s arm. “And I would always be grateful for your insights. For your wisdom. You and I, we’re veterans, but my fight has been different from yours. We bring different ideas to the table. I will come to you for advice as I always do -- and not just for this entire enterprise that we’ve embarked upon, either.”

She thought she saw the faint reddening in Shara’s cheeks, and restrained herself from drawing her friend into an embrace. 

“Be that as it may,” Shara said, with gruff good humor creeping into her voice at last.

“Thank you,” Jyn said. “I’ll see you when I get in.”

And she stood aside from the path to watch as Shara collected the others: Ahsoka, who was slumped over her horse’s reins, utterly spent from the hours of healing on top of the weeks of fighting; and Aphra, who was leaning more and more heavily on the great length of her unstrung bow with every step.

Long after they had vanished up the winding track to Skyhold, Jyn still looked after them: because she took every excuse to avoid looking up at the sky. To avoid catching even a glimpse of that sickly green light that still seemed to slash through the heavy clouds that were now roiling overhead. 

Sharp pains shot up her arm and her angry, pained cry was swallowed up by the wailing winds, by the thickening mists.

Whatever it was that she was carrying around in her left hand -- whatever power it was that had been forcibly planted within her -- useful as it was, it was also the source of the pain that dogged her every step, that gnawed at her every thought. 

Back to Skyhold: and she should have been safe, here.

But without the battles and without the grinding drive to recover after each and every encounter with their enemies, without the means of falling into restless but deep sleep at every encampment, she was dreading the coming nights: nights of waking up soaked in her own sweat, in her own tears, as the pain of the power in her chafed and splintered and rasped up and down her nerves. 

There was no healing draught for the pains caused by the thing that some of her own companions were now referring to as the Anchor: and she’d tried the remedies that had been offered, all sorts of herbs both strange and familiar, and a list of potions as long as her own leg. 

None of them had given her more than a few hours’ respite from the nagging presence and pain of the green-lit gash in her palm, that gave her the power to open and close rifts in the world. That meant that she would need to face the adversary that had come out of that breach, that great tear in the skies itself -- and she gritted her teeth and kept her eyes looking at the stones on the ground, the faint glow of scattered mineral and crystal dust that was dying in the face of the oncoming clouds, the dying day. 

To look up at the sky would make her doubt. Would make her waver.

With that same glowing palm, she reached for one of the long, wickedly curved knives that hung at her side. Held on to it, but didn’t draw it from its sheath. 

One breath after the other: seeming to draw in the rumbling menace of the storm that would soon be breaking over her head, the strange sharp scents rising into the air around her. 

She needed to focus. Needed to convince herself: the old habits clung to her with their teeth. There was no need to fear Skyhold. How many times had her companions -- her friends -- convinced her of their loyalty, of their friendship, of their understanding? 

Nights spent drinking quietly in a corner of the Herald’s Rest, Chirrut on one side and Baze on the other, and their respective weapons leaning against the wall -- Chirrut’s staff, and Bodhi’s greataxe. Bodhi, flitting in and out of even her sealed and locked chambers, trailing the smell of roasted turnips, the sweetness of the mingled flowers he wore in his half-braided hair, the oil that he used to whet his own matched set of daggers. Kay, who slouched into every chair he occupied when he wasn’t busy trying to carve little toys from whatever scraps of wood he could find, all little corners and blocks.

Her closest friends, whom she asked to go on missions of their own, independent of the tasks that she volunteered to carry out.

And that left -- him.

Moving among the soldiers and the officers, speaking with the Templars and with the mages alike: and he was preceded everywhere by the presence of his red cloak, of the lion’s-head helmet that he tended to leave in the corner of his study, where the candles flickered at all hours of the day and the night. The sword and the shield that he left in their worn and cracked scabbard and straps, showing the weight of his history, the weight of the struggle on too many battlefields to count -- but they showed no signs of his pain. No sign of tears soaked into his bedclothes, the collars of his patched and darned shirts.

Pain ringing in every inch of her skin, and yet she could still call to mind the warmth of his hand, and the incredible gentleness of his kiss. The textures of the lines radiating from the corners of his eyes, and the roughness of the stubble that he never seemed to have the time to deal with. 

Standing atop the highest ramparts of Skyhold as he spoke of the addiction that had been forced onto him, and of the pure agonizing trial of lyrium withdrawal. The blood and the screams that still haunted his sleeping hours and many of his waking ones. His blade raised against his own commander, too late to stop the madness that festered within her, that she had already unleashed upon an entire unsuspecting city. The darkness in his dreams, the whispering voices and the terrible promises.

To love him, she had had to accept all of him: all of the things he’d done and confessed and dreamed of and dreaded. To love him, she had had to know all of him: the pain and the haunted eyes and the indomitable will. The scrap of hope that he cherished and held on to with desperate hands.

“Jyn.”

His voice.

Was she dreaming of him, in the here and now, with the rain now pouring down onto her head and onto her shoulders, the rain that was now washing the shoulders and slopes of these mountains that soared above her?

The tell-tale clang of armor on the move: and she raised her eyes, dashed away the storm’s torrents, and there he was, all but hurtling toward her.

To the Inquisition, he was Commander Andor.

To her, he was Cassian: and she said his name when he finally wrapped her in his arms. She said his name, quiet sound in the storm, and pressed herself to him. 

He was warm and vital and he was all around her: the weight of his armor, the weight of his presence. 

Even in the raging storm, she could hear him clearly. 

“I crossed paths with the others -- Shara told me you were still here -- are you all right?”

She leaned into him for a moment, her forehead against the cool gleam of his chestplate, and then raised her voice to be heard over the storm. “I should be asking you that question.”

Shadows beneath his eyes, but they seemed to be no deeper than when she’d last seen him. Less like bruises. 

She brushed his cheek with her soaked fingertips, and something within her cried out -- with joy, with recognition -- when he turned into her touch.

This was home: his arms around her, his eyes on her.

“I’m all right now,” Cassian was saying. “I’m all right. And now you are here.”

Lightning cracked through the skies overhead, as though to place emphasis on his words.

“Kiss me,” Jyn whispered, and she could barely hear herself over the roar of the thunder.

Oh, what a smile he had: like something that was true, something that was real, something that she knew without ever having been told what it was.

She closed her eyes -- and there he was, so near, nearer than her own thoughts, than her own fears -- kissing her and kissing her, as the rain continued to fall.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Prompt Sixteen: "soaked" at [@rebelcaptainprompts](https://rebelcaptainprompts.tumblr.com/) over on Tumblr. 
> 
> I am also on tumblr myself -- look me up [@ninemoons42](https://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/)!


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